Chapter Text
Hell is beautiful.
The pavilion stretches out like a sea of milky quartz, columns of polished ivory lifting a cavernous ceiling that twinkles in the distant sun. Trees of candied white birch cusp pearlescent steps, white blossoms gently swaying in the cool breeze, each petal a delicate snowflake dusting the pale wood like fine sugar. Above, the sky is woven from the fleece of clouds, a tapestry soft and curling like mist at the edges.
A spirit descends from above, drifting the way an autumn leaf would, aimless and docile. He settles on the endless span of alabaster, drowsy as his feet meet the ground, the stones white and smooth on his toes. He surveys the place thoroughly – smelling the syrupy scent of the blooms, tasting the chill on his tongue, feeling the cold agate beneath him - yet a connection does not occur. If anything, his emotions seem to be growing bleak, passion draining into the blank expanse. It’s not that the atmosphere has been dulled, but that it has yet to be filled. The pavilion is an empty canvas, the spirit thinks, awaiting color.
It reminds him of something, but he isn't sure what. His memories lie just out of reach, tantalizingly close. Words emerge in the fog of his mind, but there’s no meaning to them. They simply take up space. Perhaps he would be frustrated, but he can’t muster the sentiment to simmer. There’s no heat, no flame crackling and spitting sparks. Nothing driving the spirit to pursue charring his temper.
There are only ashes, and the spirit can’t even feel anything about those, either. He glides over the gilded steps, halting at the center of the pavilion, where the invisible sun shines brightest. He closes his eyes, dark lashes brushing against his cheeks like the wings of a moth, and lets himself bask in the light. Liquid gold pours over him, nostalgia soon after, then, like a match to dry kindling – desire.
Sitting under the grace of light, the spirit aches. He wants this, he wants it all. He wants to let the sun engulf him, let himself burn up in agony. It’s a sharp, painful wanting, and absurd, but it’s the first real thing he has truly felt . The emotion heaves into his ghost of a heart, dragging it down. He realizes, slowly, that the absence of purpose was what made him light. Fate does not guide him by a faithless hand, and so he is free to meander without the yoke of yearning pulling him towards spontaneity, mishaps, and foolish whimsy.
The spirit ceases under the sun’s radiance, like a statue carved from moonrock. He looks at their hands, black fur soft on their wrists, a tail hanging limp behind him. His fingers travel over the swathe of his skin, dipping over scars he didn’t know were there, scars hiding stories in their jagged strokes. He re-learns himself, tongue poking the point of canines in his mouth, palms gently scoping out the downward curve of ears, six on each side. Thumbs brush over his right cheek, then his left; over his right eyelid, then-
He flinches, recoiling. There are no reflective surfaces, no pools of water for the spirit to gaze upon, but he knows. Brittle scar tissue slits through, and for the brief moment his hand was touching the lesion, he can tell it’s deep, etched into his skin like a well dried up of blood. His left eye’s vision is clear, but that alone feels wrong. Maybe it’s the creamy, polished opal of his surroundings that makes it hard to distinguish what should and should not be.
Perhaps he isn’t in any place to be deciding such a thing at all.
He glances away from himself tentatively; almost afraid he might forget what he looks like if he allows his hazy consciousness a moment of forgetfulness. Thoughts are pieces of parchment, flying away from his mind like paper birds, forever lost to the wind.
He tears his gaze away, and another curiosity appears before him. Just a ways in front of him is a door made of amber wood, the deep grooves of damp moss glistening with dew. Unlike the pristine courtyard, it smells of rain and mold, not at all sweet. Patches of decay stain the frame like bruises, and the knob is rusted green, the metallic scent of copper hanging in the air. It’s not attractive, but it’s flawed , and the spirit finds solace in that.
The spot of color sends a flash of lightning through his soul, a bolt of desperation. He lurches forward, running over the glassy pavilion floor, but it’s like moving through molasses. Stay , the glittering columns seem to murmur as they pass, but fervor is fueling him, and a drop of emotion is enough to fill the sea with churning, anxious waves. His bare feet hit the ground, the stone beneath whispering, their echoing chorus hauntingly lovely in his ears, but he shuts them out.
What do you wish? The knob vibrates in his hand as he reaches out to twist it. What do you wish for, beyond this point?
What can he wish for? He knows nothing of who he is, just of this little pocket of serenity he’s in. Behind the door could be the real hell, and then he’d wish he was back here. Wanting anything was never simple, and the heart is fickle, unable to choose one thing when it could fool itself into believing everything was within its reach. But in that moment, it had never been easier to pluck what he thirsted for from the vine, his pining like a ripe, swelling cherry.
I wish to return to the company of the sun , he thinks. A smile comes to mind, but he isn’t sure from who, only that seeing it feels like lying underneath those tingling rays again, his skin igniting with warmth and frothy joy. I wish to dance under it again.
His fingers grasp the knob, and with that, one memory returns – a droplet; water to parched desert earth. A name.
Macaque.
(And as he leaves the room between life and death, everything comes back at once, a thousand porcelain urns pouring out an ocean of salty, stinging memories, until Macaque is drowning underneath the waves of a past life.)
“Oh my Gods , does it ever end?”
Wukong’s errant nails cleave a peach pit in two, and he tosses the remains into the bushes for the cowering field mice. The fruit in his mouth seems to melt like candle wax on his tongue, the way his mind does as he tries to process the onslaught of new information. Stress coils in his veins, tightening like a noose. He wonders what he’s done to deserve this, then remembers that the gods hate him, so yeah, maybe this does make a little sense.
Still, he’s just returned from his journey – if journey is the right word (It’s more like a series of torturous, repeated trials, each one featuring an unfortunately hungry Demon of The Day) – primed to kick back and relax for a few hundred years, only to find a ghost sitting at his doorstep with a sly grin on his face.
“You,” he’d hissed. “You should be dead.”
“Oops.” Macaque had the gall to wink. (And Wukong’s cheeks had the gall to burn five shades brighter – out of fury, obviously.)
After a throughout assessment of his sanity, he’s found himself back in his cave, unable to enjoy being home because a certain someone is lurking over his shoulder, slithering between crevices, and lounging in the cool shade – a bit like a shadow, Wukong realizes, except now there’s the pitiful downside of not being able to punch him anymore.
“Okay,” he says through clenched teeth. “Run that by me one more time?”
“Gods, you’re slow,” Macaque comments idly, and Wukong’s fingers twitch. He’s already tried to sock him in the gut thrice, failing each time – his hand would brush through a frosty draft, hitting nothing but air. Macaque had made his pleasure about that particular capability quite clear with his boisterous, ringing laughter, and the thought of it makes Wukong flush red with embarrassment. “I was in Wang Xiang Tai- ”
“The Home-Viewing Pavilion?” Wukong echoes. “That’s on the way to the Underworld, isn’t it? Does that mean you never made it there, or...?”
“You talk too much,” Macaque complains, and Wukong finds a trivial kernel of satisfaction from his irate tone. “But yes. I don’t remember much, just a lot of white, and there was this door that I took to get back to the living world...honestly, I don’t know how long it took me to get here, either.”
“So...are you dead, or not?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Macaque titters, his voice echoing throughout the space, sending a flourish of whispering winds rustling through the drooping vines and evergreen foliage. “Dead souls have to make the journey to the Underworld, but not me,” he muses.
“Maybe you don’t have a soul,” Wukong says dryly, crossing his arms.
It’s a joke born from irritation, but Macaque hums as though he’s actually considering the concept. “Could be. Or maybe this is some form of reincarnation – but if that’s the case, I wouldn’t remember anything.”
“Oh, that’d be wonderful.”
“I’m sure you’d find that funny,” Macaque deadpans, “what with your awful sense of humor.”
“Excuse me?”
“Anyways,” he says, “I’m not in the Underworld, but I’m not entirely mortal, either.”
“Okay,” Wukong draws out the single-syllable word. “And this concerns me how?”
“Aw, don’t you miss me?” Macaque coos, his eyes glinting a faded shade of purple, his powers attempting to take hold in a spectral host.
“No.”
“Really?” His wispy body curls around Wukong’s upper torso like a fur boa, fluttering against the small of his neck. A ticklish sensation darts up his spine, a current of crackling electricity that fries his mind, singeing the small amount of rationality he has. The other monkey comes to rest on his left shoulder, smirking as his nails trace jagged paths on Wukong’s open collarbone. His touch is frigid, each breath he exhales emitting a pinprick of ice on his skin, and the monkey king flinches - not from the cold, but from the startling familiarity.
Macaque’s never been warm. He was nursed on darkness the way humans raise their children on milk, and it was all he’d ever known. An era ago - before Wukong had left for the journey, before their relationship had crumbled the way cliffsides succumb to seaside waves – that darkness was all Wukong had ever known, too, in all their hesitant, fumbling efforts to get their fingers to entwine. Though much of his memory is lost to time, Wukong vividly remembers these gentle, fleeting moments, where a rush of cold would bleed into his palm through Macaque, quelling his constant, flaming heartbeat.
Holding hands like that, underneath a canopy of leaves and surrounded by budding wisteria, he’d never felt more at peace. He hadn’t wanted to let go, for fear the fire within might grow out of control, that he might never feel such serene, simple joy ever again. When he’d expressed his wariness to Macaque, the other monkey squeezed and said he wouldn’t let go.
And he hadn’t. It was Wukong who did.
It doesn’t matter how tight you hold. If one lets go, you both fall.
He’d lost himself, reveling in a fire too hot to put out and razing everything in his path. He’d watched Macaque burn alive under his gaze and had done nothing. When the blaze had eaten through all it could, it died out, taking the world with it. His skin was a mosaic, cracked blisters and tiger-stripe bruises and cuts bubbling dark red. The ground was charcoal, the grass turned to smoldering ash. And there, torn apart by overwhelming hatred, was his other half. Or rather, what remained of him.
Really? Macaque had asked just seconds earlier. He’s still wrapped around him, whispering sweet, stupid nothings in Wukong’s ear, trying to get a rise out of him.
Wukong doesn’t understand how he can be so nonchalant, so teasing. Not when his left eye is replaced with a glowing X. Not when, mere months ago, he had killed him the way one kills candlelight, squeezing the suffocating flame within his fingertips until it ran out of oxygen and vanished into whorls of thin smoke. It was almost scary, how something so bright and beautiful could go cold in an instant.
“Yes,” Wukong croaks, his voice weak. After Macaque’s death, the others had told him he’d gotten stronger, and now he knows why. Without his shadow, he can shed radiance forever. He doesn’t have shade to fall into when he’s tired, a winter to balance his relentless, scorching summer. He only has wrath – an effective tool when dealing with demons, but now yet another burden amongst many.
“Yes,” he repeats, tongue dry. “I didn’t miss you, and this- ” he gestures to Macaque’s floating spirit - “ isn’t my business, so get out.”
“Mm,” Macaque pretends to consider it, unraveling from the other monkey’s chest like a loose ribbon, unfurling Wukong’s heart the way it would with pinched, held-up hair. “Actually, it is your business, as the main instigator of this whole death thing. Besides, aren’t you bored?”
“I could use some bored ,” Wukong snorts.
“Gods, what happened to you?”
“Hardship, suffering,” he rattles off, summoning a cloud into existence. “The works.”
“Oh, good, we have something in common.”
Wukong flinches. “Look, do you...do you want me to try and fix this?”
“ Fix ?” Macaque holds back another round of laughter, which is disappointing for a single wretched second before Wukong slaps himself in the face as a reminder that unlabeled feelings are not allowed. “What’s there to fix? This is perfect.”
“Get out.”
“I think I’ll stay,” he says, amusement dancing in his dim eyes. His entire form seems to be a washed-out version of his previous self, like the Underworld stole some of his color for its own bleak halls.
“You- you can’t stay!”
The other monkey leans in, his smile cold and dissecting, and his tail twitches. No matter how many demons Wukong faces, Macaque’s the only one able to make him squirm like this, and he despises the vulnerability. He feels like a piece of fruit rudely plucked from his branch of comfort; his walls being easily peeled away to reveal the rotten heart within.
“What are you going to do about it, hm?” He cocks his head, grinning impishly. “Kill me?”
To that, Wukong says nothing. Macaque takes it his silence as a yes and promptly shoves him off his cloud, cackling wildly.
The rest of the day continues thusly, with Wukong seeking to live life normally again, and Macaque doing his damned best to thwart his attempts, all under the guise of ‘ghostly impulses.’ Wukong tries napping, but can’t - Macaque waits until he begins to drift, his consciousness floating between the realms of sleep and earth, before whacking him on the head with a tree branch. He dangles in the air like an irritating, upside-down bat, humming unflattering parodies of mortal ballads written about Wukong (he’d managed to turn ‘peace from wit’ into ‘piece of shit’, a display of creativity the monkey king appreciated for approximately zero seconds.) His peach tree is picked clean, and he later finds the soggy fruit bobbing along the river, not even half-eaten, which may have been the biggest insult of all.
That night, for the first time in a while, Wukong prays to all the Gods he’s once scorned. He knows they’ll probably ignore him, but he hopes at least one of them will answer and drag Macaque’s ass back to the Underworld.
Hope, he soon learns, is never quite on his side.
Vengeance is petty.
Wukong’s heard of malevolent spirits that rise from the Underworld, seeking revenge from those who had wronged them when they were alive – he's listened to the grisly tales of savage murder and familial curses lasting generations as though they were children’s bedtime stories instead of grim warnings. Once in a while, his mind would wander to all those he had wronged, and sometimes he would even dream up how they might each get their respective retributions against him – burn him alive, strike him with lightning, place a hex on a line that would never continue because he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than platonic affection for women.
All of them sounded faintly miserable, but he knew they could never happen. He couldn’t die, so what was the point of any of these punishments, besides the continued attacks being a minor annoyance?
As it turns out, ‘a minor annoyance’ is the worst torture of all.
Macaque doesn’t leave him alone, latching onto him like a nasty case of lice. It almost reminds Wukong of their previous relationship, except without all the touching moments in between bouts of dumbassery, sparring, and angry (“I swear this is platonic”) kissing. (Really, the kissing made Macaque’s tendency to be Macaque so much more bearable.)
Wukong personally thinks this particular phenomenon is a well-crafted jail sentence, for him to be chained to his ex-friend/lover/menace for the rest of his pathetic immortal life. It has to be designed by one of the gods – the main culprit being the Jade Emperor, who almost hates the monkey king more than he’s scared of him – to perpetually keep Wukong so tired that he doesn’t have time to get any treasonous ideas.
He admits that it’s genius, but after finding his peach tree thoroughly stripped of its bounty the other day, he violently curses every last deity he can remember – and just after praying to them, too.
“Wow,” Macaque says with faux shock. “I see you’ve expanded your vocabulary.”
Wukong face-plants into a cloud, traveling out of the cave to search for peaches elsewhere. As usual, the other monkey glides beside him, lazing about on a moving bed of air that he can’t see. For once, he’s silent as they traverse the thick, unruly jungles of the mountain’s east side, the sweet scent of summer peonies filling the air – below, rosy pink lotuses that look like spots of rouge sail over a lake still as glass, droplets of water dangling from their petals like jewelry. Animals prowl on the ground, mothers caring for their young as their partners hunted nearby.
For a while, Wukong lets himself dissolve in the cotton-fluff of his cloud, food a complete afterthought. He savors the silence, drinking in the smell of damp air. Rain, he realizes, but doesn’t look for shelter. A little water isn’t bothersome, and he hums an intelligible murmur as the first cool droplets hit his skin.
Can Macaque feel the rain? The secrets of his ghostly nature aren’t quite clear yet. He can pick up objects, but can’t touch people, demons, or celestial beings. Wukong isn’t sure if he can eat or not, since Macaque discarded of all his peaches in an uncouth manner instead of eating them – he knows ghosts can eat, and if the other monkey can eat and just chose not to, then he’s officially reached another level of ridiculousness.
His powers are strange, too. He’s a shadow, manipulating other shadows, though his command is weaker than before, and the shades disperse before he can really grant them sentience – a relief for Wukong, because Macaque alone is a problem and he doesn’t need a dozen dumber versions of him roaming the mountain.
He pushes all grievances about his current situation out of his head, letting his eyes loll back to face the grey sky, where rain beads against the clouds and peppers against his face.
“It hasn’t changed a bit,” Macaque says softly. His voice, Wukong has noticed, is like a spring wind weaving through wind chimes. “Even after that.”
‘That’ is a reference to Erlang, who had decided to set the island on fire purely for his sadistic pleasure. Wukong remembers the destruction, the devastation of his troop members as they scampered to him after he deserted the Monk out of anger – he had been so angry, so beyond control, that his island had been turned to ashes for sport. He’d remembered trying to put the pieces back together, each step grueling and painstaking, until the green thrived and the water ran crystal-clear again, not a sign of soot dusting its banks. “Yeah. I’ve missed it.”
Macaque makes a noise of disbelief, but doesn’t retort. “So have I. How are they?”
He doesn’t need to elaborate for the monkey king to understand. “Doing well. They bounced back quickly.”
“And the nearby demons? How’s Princess Iron Fan?”
Wukong suppresses the twinge of envy twisting in his heart like a knife. “I haven’t visited the Demon Bull Family in a while, but I hear their son is a young man now. I...met with him. He’s mentoring under Guan Yin.”
“The firecracker finally got over himself, huh?” Macaque smiles, and it’s warm and genuine and very much missed, but Wukong knows it isn’t for him. He lost that privilege a long time ago. “Iron Fan’s going to be angry, though. She wouldn’t want her son tainted with ‘goodness,’ I suppose.”
Wukong tries to focus on the subject at hand, but his traitorous mind keeps circling back to the same useless details – that Macaque had spent enough time with the kid to give him a nickname, which meant spending time with the kid’s mother, and that he knew so well of what the princess liked and disliked and stop, this is irrelevant.
“Huh,” is the verbal translation of those thoughts. “Think you’ll visit her?”
“She’d kill me if I came back to life and didn’t,” he says teasingly. Then his smile vanishes, replaced with an anxious frown. “Does...does she know I’m dead?”
“I didn’t tell her directly,” he admits, “but she found out through the grapevine.”
A pause. “How did she react?”
“She was mad,” Wukong responds monotonously. It’s an understatement – she was too regal to react in the aggressive manner her husband might have, but when he had met her during the journey, she was dressed in elegant black – mourning clothes. And when he had requested to borrow her precious fan, she had tricked him twice, until he’d had to call in the forces of Heaven to retrieve it. He had assumed all her fury came from his fight with Red Son, but now he thinks that it’s more likely she had also heard of Macaque’s death, and the one responsible for it.
Macaque hums contemplatively. “I expected as much.” And there the conversation peters out, until he says, “You met Red Son, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. He was...something.”
Macaque snorts. “Something, hm? He’s always been ambitious. He really wants to please his father.”
“Demon Bull Daddy?” he asks, and the other monkey nearly topples out of place, heaving with hysterical chortling until Wukong’s suddenly laughing, too, something he hasn’t done in a long time.
“Demon Bull what? ” Macaque repeats, grinning. “Gods, if he could hear that.”
“He has, actually.”
“And he decimated you, naturally.” He sighs. “I wish I’d been there to see that.”
“Who says he beat me up?”
Macaque stares at him.
“Fine, he got one hit in.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
“Two.”
“Okay, bud. Believe what you want.”
“Yeah,” he snaps, vexed, “I’ll believe in the truth .”
“The truth is that he beat your ass, and I unfortunately wasn’t there to watch.”
“Hmph.” But Wukong’s smiling, and it’s infectious, because so is Macaque.
They descend upon a grove of trees, and Wukong’s heart seems to stay up in the air. He feels light and hardly tangible, like one of the countless wind deities that traipse the sky is passing right through him, taking all sense of physicalness away. The cloud beneath his feet dissolves into a flurry of soft, white spirals, and he treks through the thicket, pushing past sculpted jade leaves heavy with raindrops and speckled trunks that ooze caramel-colored sap. The shadows here are especially prominent, and the dim light births abstract creatures of shade that twist and dance with the movement of the sun. The darkness clings to Macaque like a cloak, trailing behind in a stream of spilled ink.
It’s a nice moment – calm, quiet. They used to take walks like this, finding little niches in the woods that were free of scampering rabbits or flaming fowls, lying in a bed of grass and staring up into the silken blue. Words were never needed during times like those, just the language of touch – gentle kisses against the nape of his neck were like affirmations, praises, and the lower their hands wandered, the more these plaudits became like curses; sharp and cruel but oh-so satisfying to feel and speak.
Now, it feels as though they have lost their ability to talk at all, both mute. Once in a while, Macaque’s eyes glance towards his, and amber meets gold the way a hammer strikes metal, sending sparks flying in the space between them. The tree branches above weave together messily, creating an archway of wood and leaves and flowering blossoms that shed cream-yellow petals over the ground like golden rain.
He doesn’t remember the path being this beautiful the last few times he’d visited. Perhaps it isn’t the path that’s beautiful at all, but the ghost beside him, his small smile crippling the stalks of flowers and taking the trunks’ shine hostage so that he remains the fixed-point of everything – not a star, but a black hole, sucking everything within it, including Wukong.
Macaque makes a noise of surprise. “Ah.”
“What?” Wukong peers at him. “What is it?”
“I just remembered I did something.”
“Did what?”
Macaque almost appears sheepish, an emotion Wukong didn’t think he was capable of expressing. The phantom monkey points forwards, where a small orchard of peach trees thrives no matter the weather. This time of year, the pale pink buds bloom into rosy, sunburst-colored peaches – except that no, there aren’t any peaches. At least, not on the branches.
Every last one of them – ripe and juicy, is splattered on the mud-caked ground, their orange nectar trickling out like tears.
Macaque whistles a tune. “Hm,” he remarks. “Must have been the wind.”
“Hey, Stupid.”
Wukong squints through the darkness, too tired to even be offended. “That’s not my name.”
“And yet you responded to it,” he points out, floating above him. It’s nighttime, the stars puncturing little holes of silver in the darkened sky. Macaque’s body holds an ethereal glow, his form wispy and diaphanous, like a floating handkerchief the color of water-borne pearls. “I’m bored.”
“Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” he informs him. “Besides, I barely slept before.”
Macaque had always been more of a nocturnal creature, unlike his fellow simians, as he drew his strength from dusk. Night, in its essence, was a shadow of day. Even the light the crescent above cast down wasn’t its own, and he was strongest in the stolen luminescence. Once, they used to stay up, filling the cave with laughter. He’d been tired, but every smile, every fond look, every searing kiss revived him, until he was running on his heart’s rickety beats.
Nonetheless, then is not now , and Wukong can’t bring himself to care. He wants to enjoy the pleasures of sleeping safely like before, without having to fret over being kidnapped or having his companions (now elsewhere) kidnapped.
“Go to sleep,” he repeats groggily, rubbing his eyelids. He’s learned over the course of his journey not to respond to everything with violence, but violence might be the only thing Macaque understands at this point, since the monkey choses to ignore simple commands like ‘no’ and ‘stop’ and ‘die, please.’
“Did you not hear what I said? I can’t.”
“Woe is you. Now, shut up.”
“How’s Chang’e?” Macaque asks instead. It’s rare that either of them shares a mutual friend, but the moon goddess is fun-loving and easy to get along with – more importantly, her food is delicious enough to bring even the wealthiest beings flocking to her table, immortals and mortals alike.
“She’s fine,” Wukong mutters. Truthfully, it’s been a while, and he could use her cheerful disposition to remind him that not everyone on earth is as annoyingly bothersome as the undead. “Go to bed.”
“Maybe if you beg.”
“Gods, just let me die.”
Macaque snorts. “I’m sure they’d be glad to take turns trying to kill you – now that I think about it, that would make a very interesting game show premise - ‘Wheel of Death’ or ‘Reap and Sow’ or ‘Let’s See Who Can Kill the Annoying Monkey First.’”
“That last one’s too long,” Wukong says, rolling his eyes, even if the concept makes him want to laugh. “Let me guess, you’d be the gameshow host?”
“Of course. If we go with the ‘Wheel of Death’ option, there’ll be a wheel-”
“Oh, really?”
Macaque ignores his sarcasm. “-with different killing methods written on it, and then the lucky contestant would spin to figure out how they have to kill you.”
“Goody,” he deadpans. “You should make it a gambling game – each contestant puts all their food, money, and prized possessions into a vault at the start of the show. If they can’t kill me, I get all of it.”
“All you do is sit in the chair, Wukong. I have to actually run the show.”
“Excuse me – I'm the one getting assaulted for people’s entertainment!”
“ Assaulted?” Macaque guffaws. “They could throw lightning at you and it would hardly tickle.”
“And your point is? I’m the poster-boy-” he coughs. “ Man of your show. The only reason anyone is joining or watching is because they either want to see people try and kill me, or because they want to see my handsome face in person. Really, if this show makes any money, it’s because of me.”
“Is that so? Maybe we’d make money if you could actually look the audience in the eye.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true. Trust me, you’d look like a wilted banana peel onstage.” He laughs. “That’s a generous description, actually.”
“It doesn’t take effort to sit in a chair and look good.”
“You’d find a way to mess it up,” Macaque says reassuringly. “Besides, it’s my eloquence keeping people there.”
“’Eloquence?’”
“Want me to define it for you-”
“I know what it means!” He snaps. “But you? Eloquent? You only use that pretty little voice of yours to make trouble.”
A blush glows briefly on his face before he blinks it away. “Yes,” he murmurs, leaning in. In the moon’s light, he looks almost angelical – impossible, because he’s the farthest thing from pure or spiritual or obedient . “I’m good at making trouble, aren’t I?”
It’s a bad time to lose his voice, but it happens regardless. “Yup. Very. Uh-huh.” Sweating bullets, he switches the topic, and the other monkey takes in the change with stride, though he doesn’t move, instead growing closer until his spectral body twines around Wukong’s. His smirk widens, and he reaches upwards to pull on Wukong’s fur, running his phantom hands through it, a sensation that feels like streams of cool water are trickling through his hair. He’s casual about it, even as his cold nails rake against Wukong’s collarbone like ice, or his mouth lingers too close to his skin.
He fills the air with useless noise, if only to drown out the ridiculously thunderous sound echoing from his chest. Crickets chirp and the sound of the river outside the cave are held captive in his ears, but it’s mostly Macaque’s voice that keeps him awake. When he’s not making fun of him, when he’s being passionate, his words slow to a hypnotic lull – it makes him sleepy, but it’s too mesmerizing for him to stop listening to.
Enervation pulls at his eyelids, but he can’t fall into the comforting arms of slumber, his body too warm and his heart too loud and his mind too scattered for sleep. He’s a puzzle in disarray, and it’s never been so wonderful to be in pieces.
Eventually, dawn pierces through the sky, bleeding pink over the world. Only then does Wukong manage to find the ability to speak. “Macaque?”
“Mhm?”
“Did we just spend all night talking about a hypothetical game show?”
“Of course not,” he says. “It wasn’t all night. Maybe only a few hours.”
And like the infuriating ghost he is, Macaque blows Wukong a kiss and leaves him in stupor, wondering if the whole thing was just a fever dream.
(But it can’t be, because his mind hasn’t dreamt up anything like that for years.)
“Hey, Peaches,” Macaque calls from the entrance of the cave. “There’s someone outside.”
Wukong groans, turning over on his cloud. An eternity has passed – by that, a total of three long days – since Macaque emerged from the Underworld as a ghost. Since then, he’s only grown more intricate in his methods of annoyance, and though Wukong doesn’t need sleep to live, after three consecutive nights of hearing Macaque complain about his cave’s interior design, he’s desperate for even a wink of silence.
Knowing he has guests – uninvited ones at that - isn’t exactly tempting, but the idea of having Macaque shut up in front of company is. With a grunt, he shifts his cloud towards the rushing waterfall and chants the spell to release its silvery curtains. They spread apart, droplets of water spraying over the sunbaked rocks, revealing-
“Oh, no,” Wukong whispers. “My lawyer.”
“Oh, yes,” Zijing remarks, eye twitching. The demoness steps inside, her crimson cheongsam’s gold trim glittering in the dappled light streaming in from cracks in the cave’s ceiling. “Tell me, Sun Wukong. Has stardom blinded you?”
“Yes,” Macaque mutters from beside him.
“Er, no,” Wukong stammers, responding to both of them. Zijing clicks her tongue, one hand reaching upwards, and he barely as any time to duck before a shing sound rips by his ear. Macaque tilts his head an inch, if only by instinct, letting the sharp silver hairpin embed itself in the stone wall behind him. Fissures spread from its sterling tip, and the cave’s fragile walls rumble in protest.
The demoness pulls another hairpin from her lustrous lavender locks, twirling it between her lithe, graceful fingers. Her expression is perfectly calm as she aims for his head, throwing the accessory with a steady sleight of hand. It flies through the air, thin as an arrow, before Wukong catches it with his tail and sends it back. Zijing grasps it without even glancing at where he sits, collects the stray strands of hair that have escaped from her pinched bun, and slides the pin in place like a key, tucking the silky locks away.
She meets his gaze, onyx eyes simmering with anger. “Do you think it is within your best interests to ignore me, monkey?”
Wukong refrains from shrugging, mostly because he doesn’t want a hairpin through his eye. “Of course not, Zhi-Zhi-”
“Do not call me that,” she seethes.
“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I’ve been really busy, you know, so-”
“Trust me, I’ve heard far and wide about your exploits,” she spits distastefully. “I was made aware of your quest, and sent you scrolls through divine messengers, but they never returned.”
“Ah, really?” He laughs, thinking of the faceless spirits in their robes, and the clone he’d sent to deal with them. Deal was subjective. “That’s a shame. I can’t say I ever saw them. Now that I’m here, though, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Everything,” she says, and from out of nowhere, pulls out a stack of folders. “It’s extremely urgent that you fill these out now. We’ve had several years of delay, and the court simply refuses to hear your case after more than a decade as passed.”
“Paperwork.” Wukong peers up at the stack, trying not to cry.
“Paperwork,” Macaque repeats gleefully. “Gods, what’d you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” he snaps, and Zijing raises one eyebrow.
“Exactly,” she says curtly. “You did nothing, and that’s why we are so behind.”
“No, I was talking to-” He points to Macaque, but the demoness makes a face of bewilderment.
“I do not see anyone.” She squints at the space beside him, where the other monkey winks through a mouthful of sweet potato, but doesn’t seem to register that there’s anything there. She sighs and flips through folders, pulling out sheet after sheet of painted symbols and blank lines that need to be filled in. The sight of it makes Wukong forget her confusion, and he lets out a little whimper, trembling at the numerous forms. The symbols swim freakishly in his vision, and he swats the air, trying to dispel of them as though they were flies.
“Let’s begin with this one,” his lawyer suggests. From her head of hair, she pulls out another pin, which he realizes is actually a polished wooden stylus. “By the Gold Star of Venus, tax evasion? How did this happen? Do you even pay taxes to begin with?”
“Nope!” Wukong chirps.
“Idiot,” chimes Macaque.
“You’re the idiot,” he hisses.
Zijing nearly snaps her stylus. “I’m the what ?”
The monkey king blinks. “Oh - oh, no, I was talking to him.”
She inhales shakily. “I do not know who you are trying to fool, Wukong, but it isn’t me.”
“No, I’m serious! Don’t you see him?”
The demoness rubs her temples with exhaustion. “Did you eat something today, perhaps?”
“Wh- I’m not suffering from food poisoning .”
“Well, that’s certainly what it seems like. “I do not have time to waste. If you are to insult me, at least do it with subtlety .”
Macaque rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t have any of that.”
“Shut up,” Wukong growls.
“What,” his lawyer says through clenched teeth, “did you say to me?”
“I was talking to-”
“Who, the air? This isn’t funny, Wukong. We have much to get done, and I would appreciate if you cooperated and stopped acting like a child.”
“That’s not going to happen, unfortunately,” Macaque comments, licking his fingers clean of sweet potato. “He’s a bit of a baby.”
Wukong bites his tongue, turning towards Zijing. “Yes. Yes, of course. Tax evasion. Got it. Give me the form.”
She passes it to him and scribbles on a red tablet incrusted with gold embellishments. “Excellent. At this rate, we can finish the forms by next week, and be in court the week after.”
He has to work on these for how long? Just the thought makes him wither with fatigue, and he desperately pushes it out. Sighing, he tries to work studiously, though sitting still has never been his strength. His tail sways back and forth, he frequently shifts positions on his cloud steed, and the stylus gripped in his hand shakes with doubt. Being a monkey, he can barely write, and only really began learning because he wanted to be able to write his own name. Simple scriptures, sure, but all this legal paperwork? A complete nightmare.
Worst of all, Macaque continues to linger beside him, making the occasional unhelpful observation. “Wow, thirteen charges for theft? That’s hilarious.”
“I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” he murmurs staunchly. It’s hard to contain so much indignation with his low, hushed volume, but he manages.
“I can’t even count all of them,” Macaque goes on, pointing at one of the forms. “Oh, is that one for all the peaches you stole? Gods, I remember that. You had an island full of them, but the minute you got that stupid job, you instantly devoured the whole garden. Honestly, how do you fail so badly?”
Wukong flips to the next page, spots of ink scattering across the cloud like the marks of a ladybug. His heart palpates like a bound-up firecracker just minutes from detonating, and he trains his eyes on the twisting symbols underneath the stylus’s tip. Full name, date of birth, celestial position...
“’Disturbing the peace?’” Macaque purses his lips. “So, like...existing? And identity theft, too? I mean, I completely understand why’d you want to be anyone else – look at you, you’re a mess.”
“Do you mind?” He grumbles. “And I’m a mess? Have you seen yourself?”
“Yes, and aren’t I handsome?” Macaque runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “So delighted you noticed, but don’t you have that enormous mound of paperwork to focus on? Don’t get distracted, bud!”
“I swear to all the gods-”
“Tut, tut,” Macaque waggles a finger. “The gods won’t be doing you favors any time soon.” He snatches another form, laughing as he reads out the various charges. “Public intoxication, robbery, disorderly conduct – that's an understatement – harassment, and-” he pauses, snorting, “first, second, and third degree murder? How?”
“People were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says vaguely, the stylus bending in half.
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant.” Macaque trills. “How did you get a charge for third-degree murder? Isn’t that an unintentional killing? Since when have you killed anyone on accident ? Who would have thought that the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, was capable of making massive mistakes?”
Wukong chews his lip, blood pooling underneath his pointed canine.
“I feel sorry for her,” he levitates over to the demoness, tapping her shoulder a few times, but his hand passes right through. She doesn’t react to it, besides shivering a little and shirking it off as a chilly breeze, confirming what Wukong suspects – that, to her, Macaque is nothing more than a gust of feeble wind. “Although it is strange that a demon is your lawyer. Couldn’t get any celestials to defend you?”
That’s exactly the reason, but Wukong replies with a stiff, “No.”
“They should add ‘serial liar’ to your list of charges,” he says idly, poking Zijing’s curled horns curiously. “Also, what is that penmanship?”
“I’m a monkey,” he protests weakly. “Writing isn’t part of the job description.”
“You’re also a king ,” Macaque points out. “Or at least a shoddy impersonation of one.”
“Who are you calling shoddy, you actor wannabe?”
Zijing blinks rapidly, her lips twisting with puzzlement. “I’m...what?”
Wukong winces. Nice one, genius. “Nothing. Slipped out. Don’t mind me!”
“I thought I heard you say-?”
“Well, you thought wrong.” At her cinched expression, he hurries to amend his previous words. “I mean to say, you...simply misheard.”
“Nothing. Slipped out. Don’t mind me!” Macaque says mockingly, sticking his tongue out.
Wukong glares at him, and before he can stop himself, grumbles, “Go to hell.”
His lawyer – who up until that point had been dutifully writing on her tablet – jolts up. Her stylus snaps in half. “ What? ”
“Ah,” he mutters, smiling nervously as she slowly stands up. “Out of curiosity, is it too late to say sorry?”
“Hey, bud,” Macaque cooes. “You got a little something on your face.”
Wukong clenches his jaw as he pulls out a hairpin from his cheek, the accessory slick with his blood. He was surprised that she’d been able to get in a hit at all, but anger can conquer impossibility – and she was related to the demonic brothers Jin and Yin, who all possessed slightly better than average (at least, to Wukong) combat skills. “That’s it.”
“What’s it? Your chance at finishing all your court business?”
He shucks the pin against the cave walls, knowing his lawyer will be back soon to retrieve it. She’d quit hundreds of times before, and always came back to pick up his case(s) again. He likes to think it’s because they share such a loving, benevolent bond and not because he pays her his island’s weight in gold. “We’re going to the underworld.”
“When you said ‘go to hell,’ I didn’t think you meant it literally.”
“I always mean it literally,” he clarifies. “We’re going down there right now. After I eat. And take a nap.”
“Uh-huh,” Macaque says, unconvinced. He’s draped on the air like it’s a divan, popping grape after grape into his mouth. “And you’re going to...what, return me to the Underworld so I can get my eternal punishment?”
Wukong sighs. He wishes he could do that – and he should, really, but a part of him feels like he’s already screwed Macaque over one too many times. It’s not that he wants him around, but he did take the one thing he didn’t have the right to – life. And now that he’s out of the constricting, monomaniacal mentality being on a journey for fourteen years does to a person, he has more time to think things through; to realize that perhaps killing the other monkey might not have been the best of his ideas.
He doesn’t know how to even begin with saying ‘sorry.’ It’s still a fresh wound, one that has yet to scab over. Macaque ignores it, and maybe being in the Underworld even dulled his anger a bit, but the topic is one that they dance around, except for the occasional dark joke. The constant annoyances, the jabbering and the hitting and the mind-numbing, jaw-cracking insults – he hates it, but it’s something he probably deserves. Macaque does it as a form of frivolous revenge, since it isn’t like he can kill Wukong back, and there’s nothing the monkey king hates more than inconvenience.
Still, even if he deserves it, that doesn’t mean he’ll just sit and take it. And Macaque isn’t making Wukong wish he was alive, either.
“No,” he mutters. “I’m going to find a way to bring you back to life.”
Macaque stares at him. “This isn’t funny.”
“Who says I’m joking?”
“You just got pummeled by your lawyer, so I’m not sure what to think.”
He exhales heavily. “Let me tell you what to think – I'm going to drag your stupid smoke-body- thing to the Underworld and ask Yama if there’s any way to make you...not dead.”
“I don’t know,” Macaque hums. “I actually like this whole ghost business-”
“Or I could go down there and ask if they have a place in hell reserved for you.” He smiles. “Your choice.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet,” he says dryly. “On second thought, life sounds attractive.”
“Gods know you could use some of that.”
“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you, Wukong.”
His eye twitches. “Anyways, get ready. We’re leaving soon.”
“Do you know how to get there?”
He pauses. “I have...an idea.”
Macaque gasps. “Oh, you have an idea .”
“I’ll find us a guide,” he waves his hand dismissively. “We’re going to get you back on earth.”
“I’m touched.” He wipes a fake tear from his eyes.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Wukong huffs. “I’m only doing this because I’ll be able to punch you afterwards.”
“Aw, so eager to get your hands on me? I like the energy.”
“Oh my gods -”
Macaque bursts into laughter, and Wukong briefly wonders if he should just leave him dead, but he’s already set his heart on the trip. He has to do this; he has to get him out of his hair. It’s barely been a week or two since his last journey, but this one’ll be short. It’s just him...and, well, a ghost, one particularly skilled at driving him insane.
But he’ll survive this – he's gone through more than a decade of being attacked and kidnapped and captured. Macaque isn’t going to be the death of him, not like he was before.
“We’re going on a journey,” he declares, fixing a steady stare at the cracked ground beneath his feet. “To the Underworld.”
(“And you say I’m dramatic,” Macaque grumbles, and Wukong throws a log at him, knowing it’ll miss its target.)